I Didn't Know You So Well
by BiblioMatsuri
Summary: Synopsis: If they had not met then… Divergence AUs, shortfics. Will take character requests. Rated for character death and imagery.
1. Danny, meet Tucker

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Higurashi Moratorium" composed by TOTAL OBJECTION ft. GUMI. YouTube: watch?v=GacBuYFfosg

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**I Didn't Know You So Well**

Danny, meet Tucker:

Two small boys run in fear, shrieking for help. None comes.

One goes one way, one goes the other. One is found by a teacher. The teacher does not listen and makes him stand in the corner for running in the classroom. One gets caught by his pursuer – the phone his father gave him, trashed. He walks home trailing his broken belongings, one small hand covering his blackened eye.

Seasons pass.

Daniel is alone. He walks through the halls of Casper High silent as a ghost, always in brown and gray so as not to be seen. He smiles to his parents, speaks to his sister, answers his teachers promptly and politely. He has gotten very, very good at not showing pain, so much so that he has forgotten what it means.

The other boy is always, always surrounded by people, always quick with an answer, forever gabbing glibly and helplessly to stay afloat. He has acquaintances, he is well-known. He will techno-magic his way into the school's security system and rewrite another student's entire history, for the right price. One Dash Baxter and his teammates apparently get perfect grades for free.

Nine years have passed.

Daniel's sister asks for help cleaning up after their parents' latest failed experiment. He agrees, not caring either way. Chasing a dropped nut, he follows a light into the

depths

trips

falls

_learns_ in that screaming moment the reason of pain, and bursts out of the mouth of the portal dyed a brilliant, bloody carmine red, his skin charred black. He cries now, always. He has no name.

He has no face.

In the days that follow, the sunlight streams red like flames, filtering dimly through the thick black smoke of oil and electrical fires. An old bottle falls broken to the ground and shatters, breaking the seal. A thousand and one wishes are made; one, specifically, for power.

They meet in the sky. Fight.

A victor is found, and the city's history ends in fire.


	2. Danny, meet Sam

BGM: "Higurashi Moratorium" composed by TOTAL OBJECTION ft. GUMI. YouTube: watch?v=GacBuYFfosg

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Danny, meet Sam:

Two boys run through the hall, slipping and sliding on freshly washed tile. One trips, falls, lands on his rear and is caught. The other keeps running, running right past a girl in pastel pink. The girl ignores him, and the incident passes.

Seasons pass.

The boys are, were, will remain friends by necessity; frightened animals cling together for the scant safety of numbers, so theirs is a partnership cannot be broken from outside. Their partnership has not been tested from within because the one is inspired and the other passive and between the two there has never been any disagreement of note.

The girl is a lone figure of pitch-black in that pastel town; tattoos and piercings loop and spin out from under her clothing, two flimsy scraps of cloth that only just fulfill the dress code. She cackles and rants to anyone who will listen: how she will change the world, how humanity is a stain on the earth, how the control of government is unnatural. In word she is a green anarchist, a paper nihilist in truth. She smiles like a starving dog in custom-made boots, a new face to wear every week.

Nine years have passed.

The boys are in the Fenton's basement. They joke and laugh about how badly that experiment flopped; the jokes fall flat into the silence of failure. They leave.

Danny comes back that night, toolkit in hand. If he could just fix it, maybe his parents wouldn't be so depressed. Maybe they would even remember he existed more than once a month.

He scowls, throws away his tools and gives up. He's never been any good at fixing things, anyway.

With their greatest venture a spectacular failure, the Fentons are ruined. They have enough money to live on as they have, just barely. The parents have credentials, however strange, so the parents go job hunting. There are no more experiments, no more explosions in the middle of the night, no more strange dishes that get up and walk away, and certainly no new clothes. Jazz is ecstatic. Danny just wants things to go back to whatever is supposed to be normal.

Rumors spread, slowly. It is hardly news that the Fentons are insane, but they're harmless enough and their money still spends. Life goes on.

Jack dies one day, and no one can agree on the cause. The coroner pronounces impact, death by falling. The obituary expounds on his life. The sole witness, an old college friend in town to visit for an impromptu holiday, claims that the poor man hallucinated his way right off the roof, and died instantly on the sidewalk. Maddie takes one look at the man and spits in his face.

Two weeks later, she hangs on his every word, her late husband of twenty years forgotten. Her children watch; Jazz worries, but Danny sees. He's lied enough for Tucker's sake to know a cover-up when he sees it.

The rumors spread quicker than lightning, and Sam hangs on every word. This, this is interesting. This is the blight of false hope and empty words, and it is beautiful to watch, and that poor boy is so cute when he's scared.

By winter break, the town is Master's playground, one last petty cruelty from the near side of the grave to the far. By Christmas day, they are Sam's faithful toys, bought by empty promises and shiny baubles and dark words whispered in the dead of night, ringing through their minds like stolen bells.

She asks, one day, if it would be all right to have a look at that old failed project, and they are too far gone to question one another's responses. She looks at her boys, shakes her head and tells them her plan.

Jack's daughter disappears that night – she knows Vlad will not care, for the right price.

When she smiles at the maw of this hungry realm, her lips stretch so far her teeth are smeared with crimson.

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Note: Why do I keep writing evil!Sam AUs? Read and review, please.


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